


the cliffside (where you and I came to be)

by dreamtoftheday



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Happy Birthday Sav!, I Tried, I was sad while writing this please spare me;-;, I've never written markmin, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, NCT Dream - Freeform, Sad Ending, i don't know how to tag, not beta'd either so-, please don't read this if you think it may hurt you, that's all I want to say, this is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamtoftheday/pseuds/dreamtoftheday
Summary: Sometimes, Mark liked to think back.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Mark Lee/Na Jaemin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	the cliffside (where you and I came to be)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinedoie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinedoie/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Sav! I wrote this in the span of a few days and honestly, it's been really hard for me, but I hope you like it;-; I wanted to add rockstar Yuta, but the plot kinda just ended up running away from me.
> 
> This is my first time writing markmin so hopefully it's okay

Sometimes, Mark liked to think back.

He liked to think about Chenle. The boy with the loudest laugh, who was kind enough to show him the world in all of its beauty.

He liked to think about Jisung. The boy from that small village down by the river, who won in all of his losses and found strength in all of his weaknesses.

He liked to think about Donghyuck. The boy from the city who he had met under the setting sun, who taught him what it was to be alive.

He liked to think about Jeno. The boy from the forest who he'd found crying under a tree, who told him all about what it felt like to be in love.

He liked to think about Renjun. The boy from the locket that Jeno always wore, the boy he was too late to meet, who was buried six foot under in the ground of a place he had once called home.

He liked to think about Jaemin.

Jaemin, who lived lightly with a heart full of heaviness, who watched the world crumble and fall right before his eyes and still managed to be kind.

Mark looks back now and he thinks that maybe, Jaemin was too kind.

Jaemin embraced the darkness with open arms because he knew no one else would, because he knew how lonely it was. He knew it wouldn't be good for him, but he didn't care.

It lingered with him, always at the back of his mind; always the first to tell him he was a failure when he couldn't reach too high, when the sky kept running from him and he couldn't catch a single cloud. He never told it to leave though, he knew how cold the streets could get.

He cared about it, the darkness, just like how he cared about every other little thing.

Sometimes, he wished that Jaemin could care about himself like that.

Like how he cared about Mark.

❆

They had first met on the cliffside, Mark was perched on the edge of it, watching the waves crash against the rocks from down below.

It was like his resting place, when the world got too much for him, when it got too lonely and he wanted to feel like there was something out there that he could hold on to.

He chose this place, because the feeling of moss underneath his fingers and the smell of petrichor were two things that made him feel alive. They were a constant for him, they stayed behind when everything else left with the falling sun.

"It's too loud here, don't you think?" a voice had called out from somewhere behind him, it startled him and he nearly fell to his death before he could whip his head around and see who it was.

A placating hand was placed on his shoulder and looking up, he saw it for the first time - the tired eyes of a boy with the Cheshire cat's smile.

He had washed out pink hair and the prettiest frame. Wearing a large white t-shirt that was tucked loosely into the waist of his jeans and frankly, Mark thought he looked ethereal under the silver streaks of moonlight that shone down on him.

And as the unknown boy moved to sit beside him, Mark turned his head back to the sea, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he whispered, "yeah, sometimes it gets pretty deafening."

The cliffside was always a quiet place, not a soul in sight other than those that were wandering, no one except Mark ever went there. It was a quiet place, not loud at all.

But Mark knew what the boy had meant by his words, by the tightness and strain in his voice and the shadows that danced across his touch.

The cliffside wasn't loud, but the silence of an always busy world was.

The cliffside was quiet, but the thoughts that rang around in their heads weren't.

"Hi," the boy had said after a moment had passed, the gentle sound feathering out into the air, "I'm Jaemin."

Mark, from the corner of his eye, could see the boy - Jaemin, playing with a small hermit crab that had climbed up onto his palm and with a dry chuckle, he rasped, "I'm Mark, it's nice to meet you, I guess."

❆

Jaemin didn't come back after that day, and it was only by sheer coincidence that Mark had met him again, outside of a grocery store.

He'd gone to get his weekly shopping, it wasn't much since he lived alone - his parents had dumped him in the woods when he was only young and an old couple that lived there had taken him in one day when they had found him, passed out on the dirty ground due to starvation.

The couple died shortly afterwards, but Mark had their small little cabin all to himself and he'd learnt all the necessary means of survival to get through his childhood alone.

It was when Mark had stopped to adjust the two bags in his hand at the door of the entrance, that he'd spotted the pinkette, crouched down beside what seemed to be a lump of fur. His eyes were frantic, wide and worried all at the same time; it was only when he'd shifted a bit that Mark realised the lump of fur was actually a dog.

It seemed to be injured, laying flat on its side and just before Mark could approach and ask what happened, Jaemin's eyes locked on him. He swore that his world stopped in the split second that he heard the younger scream at him for help, before he saw him collapse onto the ground himself.

❆

By the time Jaemin had woken up, he was in an unfamiliar place, with the fuzzy sound of water running from somewhere in the distance. He rubbed at his temples lightly, willing the pounding headache he had to go away, before his eyes widened in realisation and he shot up from his lying position, "Bruni! W-where's Bruni?"

The sound of water running stopped abruptly and Mark appeared from a door which Jaemin in his current state, assumed was connected to the kitchen.

The older boy was wiping his hands down with a dry towel and he shook his head, lips curved into a smile, "he's fine, don't worry. I patched him up and he's literally on the sofa opposite you- wait, he's a he, right? I've been calling him a he all this time..."

Jaemin tuned out whatever Mark had started droning on about, gaze frantically drifting to the leather sofa that was parallel to the one he was on right now, where Bruni was laying, curled into himself and asleep.

He let out a sigh of relief as he noticed the steady rise and fall of his body, indicating that he was still alive.

"Hey! Don't try to get up! What are you doing, you literally fainted not even an hour ag-" Mark flailed his hands in an attempt to stop the younger boy from getting up, but Jaemin cut him off.

"I need to make sure that Bruni is okay. If Bruni is hurting badly, it'd all be my fault and I wouldn't know what to do," he choked as he crawled over when his legs had decided to give up on him.

Mark gave up trying to get him to rest again, arms falling to his sides as he watched the pink haired boy run his fingers across the wound in the side of the dog's stomach. "Is that his name then? Bruni?"

Jaemin sighed, eyes stinging slightly as he took in the sight of the Samoyed, "yeah, he's my best friend." 

Bruni was a beautiful dog, all soft white fur that was unnaturally tinged blue at the edges, Jaemin had found him on the streets one day when he had snuck out of his parents' mansion to evade having to talk to more of their business aquantacies.

When he'd taken Bruni home with him, his mother wasn't pleased, he was only a child back then and he didn't understand why she was so angry, he didn't see what she saw - she saw high-maintenance and work while he saw a friend. His father had ended up convincing her somehow and he would be forever grateful to him for that because Bruni, even then, had made his life so much better.

"Thank you for saving him," he said, turning to face the still standing boy with a bright smile, "Mark, right?"

❆

"So how did he wind up like that anyway?" Mark had asked that evening, after Bruni had woken up and he'd cooked dinner for the two of them, claiming that it was too dangerous in the woods for the younger to leave until morning came again.

Jaemin fed Bruni a piece of meat from his plate, scratching behind his ears lightly as he let out a happy bark and replied with a heavy exhale, "he tried to save me."

❆

After their second meeting, Jaemin would visit Mark's cabin every so often with Bruni, claiming that the dog had taken a liking to him.

Mark welcomed them each time with his arms opened wider than the last, not having been exposed to the feelings of a forming friendship in so long, he held onto them tighter with every passing second - too scared to ever let go, fearful that one day, they wouldn't come back for him like they had promised to.

Too afraid that they would abandon him like everyone else did.

❆

"Jaemin! What the actual  _ fuck  _ do you think you're doing right now?"

Upon hearing the exasperated tone of the elder's voice behind him, Jaemin stopped in his tracks and turned his head ever so slowly towards Mark. In his hands - which were hovering over a pot of boiling hot water - he held a pile of Mark's old socks and he smiled sheepishly at being caught. "Uh, I saw a WikiHow article on how to clean dirty laundry?" he tried, only to be met with a fierce glare.

"I have a washing machine for a reason."

"But this way seemed better! You know? All rustic and shit, it goes with the cabin in the woods theme an-"

"Na Jaemin. Put. The. Socks. Down."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Jaemin whined, dropping them onto the floor and retreating to the sink to wash his hands, with a dejected murmur of 'asshole' leaving his lips. Mark heard and proceeded to slap him upside the head, to which he made a fuss about.

❆

Sometimes, it felt like they had been friends for years, Mark and Jaemin.

Though that wasn't really the case, they'd only met a little over a month ago, but it felt that way to Mark. 

Especially right now, at three o'clock in the night when he opens the heavy wooden door of his cabin and finds Jaemin on the other side, rubbing at his teary eyes and preparing to knock again.

"Jaem, it's three in the fucking morning," he'd whispered in a sleepy daze, the younger's state not having been processed properly in his mind. When it did though, he blinked away his blurred vision and moved to the side to let him in to the warmth.

"I thought you weren't gonna open the door man," Jaemin chided, shaking off the snow on his coat and trying his hardest to appear like he was joking, "what if I froze to death?"

"What's wrong?" Mark asked, instead of going along with him, "you look like you've been through shit," and he did, he really did, his hair was a mess and his eyes were puffy and red, almost as if he'd been crying on his entire trip through the woods.

"I-" Jaemin was interrupted by a tiny woof and he gazed down at Bruni who sat in front of him, tongue out and wagging his tail rapidly from side to side; he pet his head affectionately. Mark hadn't even realised that the Samoyed had been there all this time, but he blamed that on his sleep-addled mind.

"Bruni missed you," the pinkette had finally said after puffing out a breath of air, he knew that Mark knew he was lying from the way he raised his brow, but he didn't care.

❆

"So what actually happened then?" Mark questioned into the quiet air that surrounded them. He was lying flat on his back against the plush cushions of his bed while Jaemin sat by his window and counted the stars.

"I just-" he paused, seemingly trying to search for a way to word his thoughts, "I guess I just realised how much it hurts to be alive," Jaemin whispered, "and I didn't want to accept that," he took in a shaky breath, voice cracking as he lowered his head and let a single tear drop fall, "but I can't help it, I hate them- I hate them so much."

And Mark knew what Jaemin was thinking right now, Mark knew because he was thinking the exact same thing as he watched the younger fall to his knees. And he continued to think the exact same thing as he rose from his bed to help the other boy up.

_ He wanted to watch the world burn, but he didn't want to be the one to set it alight. _

❆

That night, Jaemin told Mark all about his plans to run away, about how he was going to escape to the other side of the country and live with an old friend that he liked to call Johnny.

Jaemin told Mark all about the pressure he had to face as the son of a well-known businessman, about how they were planning to force him into an arranged marriage without his consent. He'd told Mark all about how they screamed at him, how they hurt him and told him that he was useless, that he was worthless and how he should've died the day he was born.

He told Mark everything.

And Mark listened as he sobbed, as he weeped and told him that he didn't want to leave them all behind - that he didn't want to leave Mark behind, but it was just too much for him to take.

It was too much for Jaemin, the boy with tired eyes and the Cheshire cat's smile.

It was too much, it was always too much, but he would never let the world know that. He would go on and walk along a path lined with thorns and he would bleed out before he could tell them how much it hurt.

He was whispering, but Mark could hear him scream.

That's why he decided to join him.

❆

"Johnny!" Jaemin screeched as he tackled the tall boy into a hug, the brunet laughing whole-heartedly as he wrapped his arms around the younger, "I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too, kid," Johnny helped him regain his balance and ruffled his hair lightly, "and you must be Mark, right?" he asked, question directed to the ravenette standing by the living room door.

"Y-yeah," Mark stuttered slightly, trying to get Bruni to stop jumping about, "Mark Lee."

"Well Mark, it's nice to finally get to meet you, Jaemin never shuts u- okay I'm sorry," the oldest quickly corrected as Jaemin slapped his chest in warning, "I'm Johnny and you're gonna be living here from now on so, like, make yourself at home I guess."

"Just know that now you've said it," Jaemin started, making his way over to the kitchen to find a snack, "he's going to think you've given him the pass to fart whenever he li-"

"NA JAEMIN, GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!"

Johnny chuckled as he watched the two begin to chase one another around in mock anger. "Man, we're gonna get along perfectly," he said to himself, smiling happily.

❆

Johnny was right, they did get along perfectly, almost like they were a long lost family, always helping each other out and teasing, being content with the new chapters they had each started to write in their lives.

Johnny introduced them both to his boyfriend Taeil and they quickly met his whole circle of friends; Taeyong and Doyoung who got married in early December, Jaehyun and Winwin who were best friends and Yuta and Jungwoo who, Mark was certain, were born to be entertainers.

Everything was happy for them, life was good to them and they spent a year together as a group that could never be broken apart.

All until one day.

All until one day, where they were ripped apart from each other, so,  _ so  _ cruelly.

❆

_ "MARK!" _

He could still remember the way his name was screamed out, the desperation and the anguish and the pure shock - the terror, laced into the voice that belonged to the boy who screamed it.

Mark could still remember the way that Jaemin's body fell straight to the ground after he took the bullet that was meant for  _ him. _

He could still remember the look on Taeyong's face - the way he rushed over to the body that lay splayed out on the floor in a bloodied heap.

He could still remember the way that Jungwoo's tears fell as he loaded his gun and shot as many times as he could, as he tried to fight off the onslaught of men in black.

Mark remembered it all.

Mark could never forget.

❆

The echoes of every single breath he took reverberated off the walls and back into his ears constantly, a taunting reminder of the fact that he was the only person in the room at that moment.

Jeno had left a few hours ago, claiming that he couldn't be away from the forest for too long - couldn't be away from the place that Renjun was, the place that his lover cherished for all of his short life.

When Mark had first heard him talk about it like that, he found it funny, he thought it was too sentimental - childish even. Now, Mark realised that he was the same, that he too couldn't be kept from Jaemin's hospital room for long even though the younger was far gone and dead.

He'd been buried, near the marigolds that grew towards the back of Mark's cabin that he'd loved so much. Mark didn't go to his cabin often anymore - every time he did, he was reminded of that night. The night where they wrote themselves off to the shadows unknowingly, where they sealed their fate with a decision that they thought would bring them happiness.

Were they happy now?

With one of them dead and the other living in the perpetual trauma of an event that should have never happened.

Were they happy?

As all their friends broke apart because of them, and all the people they once knew had become strangers that wouldn't spare them even a second glance.

Were they ever truly even happy back then?

Or were they just two lost boys who saw themselves in each other and clung to one another to stop themselves from falling off the cliffside?

Jaemin slipped; Mark thinks that it should've been him instead.

A sliver of moonlight peaked through the shutters that were placed over the window and Mark stood to close them, to let the darkness thrive in itself completely.

He swore that in the pitch black, he saw Jaemin again, lying on the bed with that damn IV, staring at him with those tired eyes.

He could see that last scene play out before him all over again, the way he held onto Jaemin's hand with all of his strength, as if that would keep him alive.

And that last smile, that Cheshire cat's smile, it cut across his lips like it was a wound, yet he still did it - just so Mark could see, and whispered in his dying breath, a quiet, " _ by the cliffside... _ "

The sound of his own panicked cries for the doctors to come quickly as he noticed the heart monitor flat lining, the feeling of the boy's pulse dying under his very fingertips, the sight of tired eyes falling shut - it all came back to him again.

Suddenly, Mark could feel himself falling from the cliffside, the place that was once a constant to him, the place that was once a haven, the place where he first met a boy named Na Jaemin.

The cliffside where he met his first and last love.

❆

"Come on Bruni, good boy," Mark cooed as he called for the Samoyed and he came running, leaping into the boy's outstretched arms.

Jisung had dropped him off at the hospital after saying that the dog missed him too much and Mark couldn't help but laugh sadly when he felt his heart clench.

Some things never changed.

Bruni may have been older, larger and stronger than he was before, but he was still Bruni. The baby blue edges of his fur were coloured a deep crimson now, but he was still Jaemin's best friend - was becoming Mark's as well.

Sometimes, Mark liked to think back to how he met Bruni.

Sometimes, Mark liked to think back.

He liked to think about Chenle, the boy who always found a way to stay positive and Jisung, the boy who was wiser than words could express. 

He liked to think about Donghyuck, the boy who was as bright as the embers of a wildfire started in the heart of a jungle.

He liked to think about Jeno and Renjun, the star-struck lovers that he'd never been given a chance to see together.

He liked to think about Jaemin.

_ Sometimes, Mark liked to think back and cry. _


End file.
